Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
So, everybody who plays in my every-other-week group probably shouldn't read this one.
It's part of the adventure I'm writing up for a one-shot. So ....
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So here's the situation. I'm writing up an Eberron adventure which, in the spirit of Indiana Jones, sends a hapless contingent of a warforged army down into a cavern after a Karrnathi necromancer and his cohort. Of course, the cavern leads to an ancient draconic temple, where a series of cunning traps and strange markings are found.
One particular room has a floor marked, conveniently enough, in 10' squares. Waiting on one side of the room is a portion of the necromancer's cohort. The necromancer, who made it through ahead of the party, will reactivate the trap that cost him several skeletons on his first pass through.*
The trap is this:
Each round, the 10' squares in the room shift. They start by all dropping 10'. After that, they begin shifting up and down. The room has 10' high ceilings, normally, meaning that two shifts up are required to send whatever is on a given pedastal into the ceiling. The round after a pedastal hits the ceiling, it drops 20' and begins the cycle again. Not every pedastal moves from the "down" position.
If you are on a pedestal as it moves up, you will need to make a Balance check to remain standing (probably in the realm of DC 10). If you're about to be squished, you get a Reflex save (DC 15? 17?) to roll off a random side (possibly suffering falling damage). If you fail your Reflex save, you are affected as though by a "stone blocks from ceiling" trap (4 or 5d6 damage), and are pinned until the column moves again (i.e., it's not an instant death trap - I don't care for those).
So, my question is this:
Once the room is set in motion, what is the best way to determine when during a round the columns move?
I've considered a couple possibilities.
1) The room rolls initiative at the beginning of battle, and the columns move each round at that initiative count.
2) The room automatically goes either first or last in the initiative count.
3) The room rolls for initiative every round.
4) Something I haven't thought of yet.
I'll leave my thoughts out for now, since I'm interested in seeing how others would handle such a room.
* - Note: The room isn't actually a trap in the classical sense of the word. It's actually just part of the machinery that runs the draconic orrery downstairs, which the necromancer is busy fiddling with.
It's part of the adventure I'm writing up for a one-shot. So ....
-------------------------------------------
So here's the situation. I'm writing up an Eberron adventure which, in the spirit of Indiana Jones, sends a hapless contingent of a warforged army down into a cavern after a Karrnathi necromancer and his cohort. Of course, the cavern leads to an ancient draconic temple, where a series of cunning traps and strange markings are found.
One particular room has a floor marked, conveniently enough, in 10' squares. Waiting on one side of the room is a portion of the necromancer's cohort. The necromancer, who made it through ahead of the party, will reactivate the trap that cost him several skeletons on his first pass through.*
The trap is this:
Each round, the 10' squares in the room shift. They start by all dropping 10'. After that, they begin shifting up and down. The room has 10' high ceilings, normally, meaning that two shifts up are required to send whatever is on a given pedastal into the ceiling. The round after a pedastal hits the ceiling, it drops 20' and begins the cycle again. Not every pedastal moves from the "down" position.
If you are on a pedestal as it moves up, you will need to make a Balance check to remain standing (probably in the realm of DC 10). If you're about to be squished, you get a Reflex save (DC 15? 17?) to roll off a random side (possibly suffering falling damage). If you fail your Reflex save, you are affected as though by a "stone blocks from ceiling" trap (4 or 5d6 damage), and are pinned until the column moves again (i.e., it's not an instant death trap - I don't care for those).
So, my question is this:
Once the room is set in motion, what is the best way to determine when during a round the columns move?
I've considered a couple possibilities.
1) The room rolls initiative at the beginning of battle, and the columns move each round at that initiative count.
2) The room automatically goes either first or last in the initiative count.
3) The room rolls for initiative every round.
4) Something I haven't thought of yet.
I'll leave my thoughts out for now, since I'm interested in seeing how others would handle such a room.
* - Note: The room isn't actually a trap in the classical sense of the word. It's actually just part of the machinery that runs the draconic orrery downstairs, which the necromancer is busy fiddling with.